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ModelSvit 1:72
Joe Kim添加了一个新相册
16 26 June, 21:50
Michael KohlAhhh, those Azur kits are not for the faint of heart, but encompass some lovely subjects. Cross my fingers for a good result on this one. Following with interest.
29 June, 12:40
Fenris Models开始了此项目
Master Grade (MG)
RX-78-2 Gundam Ver.Ka E.F.S.F Prototype Close-Combat Mobile Suit Bandai Spirits 1:100
5063537 (0114215) 2022 新的盒子 6 July, 01:00
UlricawilliamsSomeone says ICM got and measured Ukrainian Army's leopard 2A6??? Or even brought one from black market I guess ???Can it be the most accuracy Leopard 2 kit in the world??Hope to have internals and real structures of armor!!!
1 5 July, 13:05
Steven Van Dyck添加了一个新相册
45 19 June 2023, 19:38
Steven Van DyckThis weekend both Essex and Hancock kits were started. You can compare these two on my garden table, Essex being a short hull version and Hancock one of the later long hull types. Therefore Hancock has the Ticonderoga Pontos set. I threw in a dozen of airplane sets and pillaged the Ion Model figures stock for about 420 seamen to take the stations. While making the requested change to the rear elevator (see shipmodels.info/mws_..pontos+essex#p919517 ) an error was discovered in PE part 605 and this can only be solved by completely scratching it. Also, I'll open up one rear elevator so I have to adapt the deck edge to that. The Hancock kit got some travel damage to the hangar deck, so that will have to be repaired too. But I think this is a good start to the project.
19 June 2023, 19:52
Steven Van DyckThe hangar doors present a compomise that I can't accept, showing some inside detail but with all gates closed down and an exaggerated thickness. I decided to remove all of them, beginning with the Hancock sprue. You can compare with the original Essex sprue. To replace the partially closed doors, I can choose between Evergreen grated plates (subtler paneling though one-faced) or the same metal foil as used earlier.
24 June 2023, 22:56
Steven Van DyckThe walls of the Hancock are now built. I found out that there are not enough Pontos PE doors of one design to replace all plastic ones, so Hancock and Essex will be getting a different type. A drawback to the hangar walls is the absence of locator holes. I made some pins myself. The plane cockpits were not in stock and will arrive later.
31 March, 01:55
RandoRead a lot about the Essex-class carriers, really interesting history and very interested to see how your ships turn out 🙂
31 March, 02:02
Steven Van DyckThanks, Rando. Today the second ship's hangar was closed off. In the Essex model I didn't need to remove a part of the hangar deck, so now there's a minute difference in the distance of the rear deck to the island structure. The fault should be in the Hancock bow section. I closed down some of Essex hangar doors, but I kept a peeping hole for the elevator shaft that I moved to the right like in Hancock.
2 April, 00:02
Gary VictoryThis is some project Steven. These are not exactly small models (i have one myself - CV-13 USS Franklin)....and so much extra detail you are adding. Watching in admiration. Great work so far.
2 April, 06:18
Steven Van DyckThanks, Gary. The first PE parts are bent for the stern and the boat cranes of Hancock, after the hangar wall seams are removed with Tamiya filler. One part of the wall is badly fitting and needs to be shortened.
5 April, 01:27
Steven Van DyckLots of PE particles are now assembled to giant deck support structures. I accidentally used the Essex front deck instead of the Hancock one, so I had to remove the PE plate causing half of the ribs to jump of again and restore this to the Hancock deck. Now I'm about to begin the same again for Essex, that has a slighty larger hollow under the flight deck.
8 April, 01:40
Gary VictoryNice progress Steven. Shame about the mix up but we all human, im sure at one point we have all used a wrong part or miss assembled.
Keep up the good work....and enjoy your build time.
8 April, 10:01
Steven Van DyckThanks for the acclaim, now Essex is also loaded with PE parts under the front deck. I also removed the rear lift floor in the hangar deck, because it will be visible through the side doors. The deck edges are getting PE plating with the correct catwalk acces doors and fire station hatches, but I'm still thinking about methods to remove the space behind these PE parts. Drilling is not enough.
12 April, 12:38
Steven Van DyckThanks Gary. The update today shows the reshaping of the Hancock bow. The angle of the kit bow is too shallow, so I cut out a wedge in the side and plied it back. The bottom part was split and clamped shut tighter, using sprue "rivets" to hold it closed. A lot of sanding followed, even after I had installed the port 40mm hubs on the hull. Another problem were the 18 doors that needed to be removed from the island structure, so I used my Proxxon for that. An extra is the comparison between 5inch/38 mounts from the kit, Flyhawk (yellow) and Pontos (Brown). Pontos is more detailed, Flyhawk has PE details and the kit is built up from different parts.
20 April, 10:19
Steven Van DyckThanks, Pietro. The islands now both have all watertight doors, and Hancock's island is already a bit further down the line sporting ladders, a PE walkway, the pri-fly cabin and a almost fully equipped smoke stack. For a movie about choosing the right watertight door in your model, see Youtube Video . I did find the correct type on some detail pictures in my books.
23 April, 13:24
Steven Van DyckA 45 picture update about Hancock's island. I made changes to the building plan where I saw the reference pictures didn't follow them. Loudspeakers were added. A cutout in the bridge deck was removed. The venturis on the different levels were added, but some don't extend far enough. Some of the PE hatches on the director towers needed to be scrounged from the ABSD project remains. All kinds of radar antennas are added, some I didn't find or identify yet, like the "stovepipe" antenna encircled on one reference picture. The SC-2 radar needed to be put on the platform for the side SK radar position. I did make the rear mast for the smokestack position, but removed it again because there is no trace of it in the reference. It might still be used on Essex.
26 April, 00:35
Steven Van DyckThanks Christian. Again a large update with changes to the Essex island. The front structure is made identical to Hancock and some scratched galleries are added. I decided to move Essex to the march 1945 scheme. Pontos has some parts for 1944 Hornet that are useful here, like the bridge walkway. Some areas like the stern will have to be adapted too. The same radar antennas are used, but some of them on different positions. I now added more airplane PE to the inventory, some of these should be finished to be able to close down the hangars.
2 May, 13:12
Steven Van DyckThe Avengers are now getting their PE cockpits, and the interior of the hangar is painted white.
6 May, 00:59
Steven Van DyckThanks, the airwing continues with the Helldivers, the Hellcats and the Corsairs, that had the hardest fit, so it's a good thing I had only six of them. I still have the same amount of planes not getting a cockpit.
8 May, 00:25
Steven Van DyckDetailing of the port air outlet, the catwalk and starboard galleries of Essex. For Hancock it's only the outlets that were repeated. At first I was cutting small mesh parts, but it's better to cut them as a whole and add a PE crosshair. In the Trumpeter planes there is a tendency in the wing base to be cast offset (see color image) resulting in a skewed wing position when the fuselage halves are assembled. I'll often have to correct the angle. All plane fuselages have been fixed now and in the Helldivers and Avengers the seams are already filled and sanded.
11 May, 00:36
Steven Van DyckThe Helldivers are first to be completed with PE parts. The Pontos airbrakes are an improvement over the kit ones, and they can both be used for stretched wings or retracted ones. I drilled open the wheel wells. In the Hellcats, the cowling is incorrectly cast with one lower opening, so I shoved a node in each one and sanded it flat. A new opening is drilled and an oil cooler vent is then cut out under that. Takes quite a while.
14 May, 15:06
Steven Van DyckThe Hellcats are now all having a revised cowling and they also have a brass tube for the new prop position. The wheel wells are all drilled out and I made 10 scratch pairs because I only have 32 Pontos pairs for 42 Hellcats. For the Corsairs the wheel wells are rectangular which is a real pain to scrape out. The Avengers are still to be detailed, beginning with the tail wheels.
18 May, 00:52
Lode SchildermansThat are quite a lot of planes you're doing.Defintely will complete the build
18 May, 11:59
Steven Van DyckI think so, Lode. Don't you fancy a carrier build yourself? You probably have a Yorktown 1/200. Today the painting of the airplanes was started. The wings are painted white but this I might have to redo in grey, they're too coarse. The planes are in grey now. I cut out the propellers and I needed extas for the Hellcats, so I changed the 6 optional 4-bladed Corsair props into 8 3-bladed ones.
21 May, 01:35
Spanjaardton of little airplanes will certainly make a great flight deck, picture 359 seems an MC Escher design 😉
21 May, 06:23
Steven Van DyckCurrently these planes are enveloped with gum to spray the camo on them. This is extremely tedious because the gum is not always adhering well and it must be sculpted exactly the same on each plane. I now painted the hangar floor in Lifecolor Deck Blue 20b (don't mind the overspray) and I also built the side elevators. This is a very nice fit from Pontos, but the netting supports are erroneously numbered 36 and this part is not abounding, nor does it fit the purpose. In stead of it should be used part 10, that was left in just the right numbers. The repair of the 5 inch/38 resin housings was first done with putty but then I wanted the outline to be improved and I made impressions with a knife flat and a drop of CA. Then break off the knife and a straight edge will result.
24 May, 15:21
Steven Van DyckThe 5 inch guns are now all detailed according to reference pictures of the ships. Essex was different than Hancock, it had no blastbags nor ladders. But in the end I noticed I used the wrong type of ladder, so maybe those will be removed. For the single guns one double gun barrel was wrongly shipped, so I lengthened that one with a 1mm Albion tube. Also some small parts are not provided in the needed quantity, or the option of placing PE steps was not shown in the manual.
27 May, 12:48
Steven Van DyckThe long range antenna pylons of Essex are according to the Pontos manual, but they copied this for Ticonderoga and that's incorrect. The 3d pylon should be left out for long hulls and so I can drop a 10th pylon for Hancock. One of the ladders for that can be used to complete the double 5 inch housings. Because of much unclarity in the manual I made many wrong folds on the catwalks and had to reassemble lots of parts with stress cracks. Also the deck edge elevator has a chain lift system that is now constructed out of a very fiddly frame that also breaks easily. But the end result is sturdy enough.
31 May, 00:43
Steven Van DyckAll planes are now in sea blue and ready for the last camo paint. The prop tips are painted in yellow. Some wings were stripped, others were overpainted in light grey.
5 June, 10:50
Steven Van DyckMidnight Blue is almost completely added on all planes, only the Avengers still need the tail completed. Some of the wings had orange peel and were redone.
7 June, 01:02
Steven Van DyckThanks Gary! It went on with the elevator shafts, the Avenger tail colors, the propellers that were masked with a metal roundel (after 2 hours I now have painted about half of them black - on two sides!) and then finally the cockpit set arrived and I soon had some new Helldiver and Hellcat cockpits. I wanted the Dragon Avengers to have a PE cockpit too, but this was a very tight fit even afer milling as far as I could in the fuselage interior.
11 June, 23:59
Steven Van DyckThanks, David. Now it's decal time. 196 roundels on the wings, as many on the tails and again for the callsigns on the tailplanes. Essex has a horizontal white line that was trimmed with scissors and Hancock has a horseshoe. Still some more are coming, but for the numbers some research will be necessary. All decals were treated with Daco Sol. Plane interiors ar painted Vallejo Interior Green. Hellcat propellers are also painted.
14 June, 00:28
Steven Van DyckThanks for the comments! Today most of the canopies are cut up, ground thinner and applied to the fuselages. I'm left with the Hellcat open canopies, these just don't look the part and I will probably have to remove part of the tail to fit these.
1 July, 22:58
Steven Van DyckI found a hack for making the perfect 1/350 Hellcat open canopy. Use 1/700 two-bar railing cut to four stanchions and bend this over the middle. By now I have placed all clearparts on the airwing. I now started t add the number decals on the Helldivers. You shouldn't follow the Pontos Hancock tailfin indications, these appear wrong as the number is always below the omega sign.
3 July, 20:01
Steven Van DyckThanks, Gorby. All crates now are sealed with Pledge and the props are installed. For the Helldivers I needed to scratch prop spinners out of clipped spheric node ends.
6 July, 00:49
Desert Marlin添加了一个新相册
36 14 April, 21:47
Desert MarlinWell, the polycap that is supposed to link/sync the left and right elevators fell out during the process of joining the fuselage halves. So I had to saw out the little housing that was supposed to hold the polycap in place and set it manually. Looks like I have one "unforced error" so far...
26 April, 22:57
RandoThat Merlin is looking great. Looks like it came with the kit? Must be a lot easier than old resin, lol
27 April, 00:09
Desert MarlinIt's close to time to add the canopy and mask for paint. Lots of weathering yet to go. And the gun bays are looking a bit bland. Needs some additional paint and wiring.
1 May, 06:15
Desert MarlinTime to close up the cockpit and prep for paint. Going to be one of those traditional natural metal schemes with lots of wear and tear...
3 May, 05:06
RandoYep agreed Ky, my next P-51 will definitely be a Tamiya. How did detailing the gun bays go Marlin?
3 May, 14:37
Desert MarlinStill working on them. The fit has had only one issue that was even close to being worth mentioning. The right wing gun port on the leading edge did not fit perfectly. So I have had to do a little filling on the undersurface. The underwing scoop was almost an issue but seems to have settled into place. WARNING: one must fit the AILERONS BEFORE THE FLAPS. Otherwise the photo etched hinge does not get locked into place by the steel shaft from the outboard end of the flap. Missed this so it was unforced error #2...
3 May, 20:53
Desert MarlinOkay, after looking at some of the real aircraft, I am not sure there is any detail needed except to weather the bay and guns. I was expecting some electrical or other pipes/wiring, but alas, there does not appear to be any...
3 May, 21:41
Desert MarlinI'm back! So the masks provided are intended to be applied to the outside surface. However, it's really hard to mask the interior surface, so I cut the masks and applied them to the inside of the glass and then used Scotch tape for the outside. Leaving the interior a little "over masked, the black primer added to the outside with the flat black interior will create a nice effect overall.
2 June, 23:44
Desert MarlinBack at it! Prop is done, not yet weathered. Needs some scuffing along the leading edges.
1 July, 04:14
Desert MarlinI'm using Alclad and Metalizer. Sadly, my collection of Metalizer is shrinking. My choice for masking tape is 3M PostIt Notes. They work really well on the soft surface of Alclad Primers and Paints. Looking to seal it up next and start the process of marking/weathering.
4 July, 17:04
JohnI love the finish of Metalizer but hoo boy is it fragile. I hear you on supply. I'm all out of aluminum; stainless steel and jet exhaust are all that's left. 🙁
Your IDF Mustang is looking great, however!
4 July, 18:02
CaptGPFGoing to steal your post it notes trick for my next metallic project. Even i]with Xtreme Netal paints, I still have to wait a couple of days after I seal it with gloss - thanks Marlin!
5 July, 15:40
Javi Moreno开始了此项目
Russian Nuclear Ballistic Submarine
Project 667BDRM Delfin - Tula NATO Delta IV Class Zvezda 1:350
9062 2020 新模具 6 July, 00:14
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